State Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas yesterday introduced a bill to indefinitely extend the authority of the Baldwin Hills Conservancy to preserve and protect the group’s work to create open space and expand parkland for residents’ recreational use.
 


Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s bill would delete the Jan. 1, 2018, sunset clause from the  enabling statute that was chaptered in 2000.
 


“The Baldwin Hills Conservancy should never be allowed to go out of business,” he said, “until its mission has been fully achieved, until its initiatives have been fully realized and its work completed.
 


“The Conservancy’s mandate is to acquire the remaining open space in the Baldwin Hills for the expansion of Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area into a two-square mile park.”

The Conservancy was created to coordinate an integrated program of resource stewardship so that the Baldwin Hills open space area is managed for optimum recreational and natural resource values based upon the needs and desires of the surrounding community.

“Those mandates are as important today as they were 15 years ago,” Mr. Ridley-Thomas said.

“We should not allow it to sunset in three years when there still considerable work left. 
 
“We have an opportunity to create a grand park in the middle of southwest Los Angeles. I intend to make sure we don’t let that opportunity slip through our fingers because of a sunset clause .
 


For more information on Mr. Ridley-Thomas, see http://asmdc.org/members/a54/

Mr. MacFarlane may be contacted at fredmacfarlane@mac.com